I recently saw a relative sharing a link on Facebook to a scam very much like the ones I’ve warned you about before. She wanted to know how I could tell it was a scam. Fair enough question. Those of you who have read previous articles here on the subject probably have a good idea of what to look for. But it can’t hurt to go over it again and again and again. These scams aren’t going away.
Here’s the post. Your first clue should probably be that it’s asking for likes and shares. That’s not the normal way for a large grocery company to handle a contest. Picking a number between 1 and 50 hardly makes sense for a company this large that only intends to give away 10 prizes.
Let’s head on over to their alleged Facebook page. Notice the dot and the space between Aldi and USA? Notice that there are only 47,000 likes? Way less than a major corporation that’s been in business for a darn long time would have. Also, notice the absence of a blue checkmark verifying that this is the official Aldi page. This page only had three posts on it in total and they go back to last week. All signs of a scam.
Here’s a look at the REAL page for Aldi in the USA. Note the verified blue checkmark and the millions of followers.
When I pointed out in a comment to my relative that this was a scam, a friend of hers said there really wasn’t a need to worry because there weren’t any links involved. As I’ve told you before, links on deals like this generally lead you to pages with malicious software. But that’s not always the case Sometimes they use the information to connect with you on Messenger and send malicious links or scam offers. Or to target you with scam advertising. This is also a great way for scammers to choose targets to clone by taking your name and your photo and creating a fake account. They are especially interested in you and your friends because they see you as more likely to click on scams.
Sharing links like this with your friends is like giving a scammer a list of friends to target.